Bandages
by timeespaceandpixiedust
Summary: It was the truth that Clarke had spent three months hiding from in the woods. Now that it's been thrown in her face she has no choice but to deal with the person she's become and the choices she's made. Lexa is there to remind she no longer has to shoulder this burden alone. Based off the prompt: Okay but if Lexa found out what Bellamy did to Clarke and how he made her cry


They reach Polis by sundown a day after Lexa's momentous declaration. The ride back is near silent. There are no claims of justice and no smiles exchanged due to the victory of peace. The peace Lexa had now declared was coming at a cost greater than death. It left the air between them tense.

Lexa rode behind most of the way, always within Clarke's peripheral vision but never quite there.

The space was good. Clarke was grateful to have the time to collect her thoughts and contemplate what this future might hold for her and her people.

The night back in Polis is no different. After they return Clarke does not waste time before occupying the quarters she had stayed in before. If dinner was happening tonight then she was not interested in attending. Instead she requests bandages and a salve. Her wrists were red and angry and though Clarke had kept them covered with strips of cloth, she was worried they would become properly infected if she did not tend to them properly.

As she waits for the return of supplies, she strips out of her gear. At this point she didn't carry any form of a weapon on her, just protective armor that was placed beneath her clothes. Even that she hadn't wanted to wear, but the guards insisted when they saw she had left it sitting behind on her bed. It almost made her smile knowing that it was due to the fact that their Heda most likely had instructed them to make sure she wore it.

Clarke pulls a nightgown from her wardrobe, this one green and simple, and moves to pull it on when a knock sounds at her door. "Enter," she calls to them with her back to the door. As she hears it open she slips into the gown and turns to accept the supplies.

Instead of a servant there with an arm full of supplies there is Lexa who swallows heavily when Clarke's eyes meet hers. "I'm sorry, I thought I heard-"

"You did," Clarke cuts her off, running her hands self-consciously down the front of her night gown. "It's fine."

It would seem Lexa's attention is already elsewhere though as she advances on Clarke even as she's still speaking. She reaches forward, gently pulling Clarke's arm toward herself and staring down at her wrist. "What happened?" she demands, eyebrows furrowing as one of her fingers gently runs along the top of the abrasion. It hurts but Clarke doesn't flinch away. "My guards are under specific instructions not to restrain you. Who was it? They will pay immediately."

She puts Clarke's arm down and reaches for the dagger which rests on her hip even now as she stood in her simplest apparel.

"It was not any of your guards," Clarke states, looking from Lexa's hand that was clenched tight around the handle of her weapon and her face.

That causes Lexa to relax ever so slightly. Clarke does not miss the way her shoulders relax or how her stance shifts. "Those are obvious restraint marks, Clarke. If it was not my guards then who? Another of my people? Someone who resents the peace claim perhaps?"

It makes the pain that much worse; the fact that Lexa doesn't even consider it could be anyone but her own people. "It was not any of your people."

The moment of realization hits Lexa soon after and her features soften as she quietly says, "Oh." It would be horribly insufficient were it anyone else. From Lexa though Clarke already knows exactly what else she is thinking. From Lexa that single word was enough to remind Clarke that she would not receive such treatment here. If only because Lexa would absolutely forbid it. "Your people then?" Clarke nods. "I see. You did not mention this earlier. Why not?"

In response she huffs out a humorless laugh. "Would the fact that one of my people handcuffed me and was very well leading me to a jail cell, or worse, have really encouraged you to accept the peace I was suggesting?"

Lexa looks off to the side and then nods once. "No, I suppose it would not." It is not lost on Clarke that Lexa desires to protect her. "Are you okay?"

After everything, after hands sliced by the blade of a sword and hearts broken by the betrayal of a commander, Lexa asks these words over some simple wounds around wrists. "Fine. It barely even constitutes as an injury."

With furrowed eyebrows Lexa says, "That isn't what I meant." She steps forward again but there's a knock at the door, cutting her off. She shoots Clarke a glance before going to it and just barely cracking it open. She thanks the person in Trigedasleng and carries the items over to the wash basin in the room. "I can help you clean them. If you'd like."

Though Clarke had been grateful for the solitude on the ride back to Polis, she was not ready to embrace it once again now that she had companionship once more.

Lexa sits in front of the table, hands wringing a soaking rag above the bowl, water drips back in with gentle splashes, a few drops falling over the side and collecting on the wood of the table. Clarke sits next to her and offers her wrist into Lexa's waiting hand.

If nothing, she is gentle. She dabs and wipes and plucks out small bits of gravel or dirt that had gathered in the open flesh. It felt like only the barest of touches through it all. "Who was it?" Lexa inquires.

Clarke does her best to ignore the tinge of anger that covers Lexa's voice. "It doesn't matter."

"It does," Lexa insists, looking away from Clarke's arm to meet her eyes. Her hand still wrapped around the uninjured portion, squeezing ever so slightly.

With a shrug of a shoulder Clarke looks pointedly back down at her wrist, distracting Lexa by reminding her of the task at hand. "Hardly. How do you even know it was anyone of significance?"

"Because," Lexa sighs. "You flinched when I asked."

Maybe if she hadn't been so steadfast in her pain before now Lexa wouldn't have interpreted her response the same. Too late now.

"You don't deserve the betrayal you receive, Clarke," Lexa whispers the words, releasing Clarke's first wrist and keeping her gaze determinedly down as she gestures for the next arm. "I'm sorry your people have done this to you."

"It doesn't matter," Clarke insists. It was the mantra she had repeated ever since she had taken off running from Arkadia. Every twinge in her wrist reminded her of the angry words which had been spat at her from someone who she had trusted. But it wasn't like it mattered. None of it truly mattered. When she ran away it had been because she needed all of it to stop mattering. It made little sense for her to let it all get to her again once more. "They don't matter."

"And yet you fight to save them," Lexa muses aloud. Her eyes fly up to meet Clarke's for the briefest of moments. "You came back fully admitting to your peoples' errors. Is this why?"

Clarke has a suspicion that Lexa already knows this answer. "No."

She makes a sound of contemplation before asking, "Then why?"

"I told you," Clarke answers, shifting in her seat. Lexa grips Clarke's arm a little tighter in response. "My people are wrong. They're seeking revenge from those who don't deserve it. They're doing harm where it isn't needed." Much like Clarke herself seemed to so frequently do. Yes, they had killed so many with their actions but hadn't she done the same as well? Was she not just as bad? "I don't…I can't condone people who make those sort of choices. But I also can't just let them die. Not when there are still people I care about there."

Lexa nods, taking a dry towel and using it to wipe at Clarke's wrist, moving to apply the salve next. "Your mom," she says quietly. It makes Clarke wonder where Lexa's parents are; if she ever even knew them or if they were long dead by now. "Octavia, Raven…Bellamy."

Clarke can't help it. She flinches at the name. "Don't," she whispers because she doesn't want to face the memories of what Bellamy had said to her. She isn't ready to acknowledge what one of her closest allies, and dearest friends, had thrown in her face.

"It was him then?" she asks and it's completely obvious what she had been doing. Awfully nosy for a commander of twelve clans. One might think she had better things to do. "Why?"

It's stupid and unprecedented and against Clarke's every intention, but her eyes well up and her throat tightens at the thought. "Because he sees me for what I am," she admits.

Lexa's hands still and she cocks her head to the side. She gently holds Clarke's arm as she looks up at her. "He restrains you because of who you are?" she questions.

It seemed simple enough to Clarke. Though what Bellamy had done had hurt and, regardless of how wrong he might be in his current actions, there had also been truth to his words. There was a reason Clarke had been hiding from those truths for so long. "With good reason," Clarke mumbles in response.

This sends fire to Lexa's eyes and a hitch in her breath as she pauses her every movement to shake her head. "I see no reason why you should be restrained. And, as your friend, Bellamy should not either."

Was he still her friend? After what happened between them… "I've killed people, Lexa." Her voice is pleading for Lexa to understand. She just needs someone to understand. She had made these choices and now she is forced to live with them but she _can't._ There is too much blood on her hands and a back that isn't big enough for all the kill marks she's acquired and she keeps making choices that lead to more death and more destruction and she can't stop it. She couldn't stop it until last night in a candlelit tent with an insane plea and desperate eyes. Up until then she had been incapable of saving lives in favor of taking them.

"As have I. Would you care to lock me up?" She challenges Clarke with a raised eyebrow and a taunt in her tone. "And so has Bellamy, yet I do not see you attempting to restrain him."

It was true. Bellamy had taken many lives himself. He had helped her pull that lever in Mount Weather even. But he took the accountability of those lives in a different way than she. He did not carry those deaths the same. Instead of accepting the blame he was pointing it elsewhere. Clarke was forced to wear hers like a scarlet letter every day.

"What did he say to you?" Lexa demands. It must be obvious that Clarke is broken because Lexa, who is nothing but gentle even in the fiercest of moments between them, is suddenly very angry. There is a tenseness to her shoulders and a bite to her voice.

Maybe it would be easier to convince Lexa that this whole nonsense was of little importance if Clarke could stop the way tears slip from her eyes and a strangled sob fights against her in the back of her throat.

The words had cut her so deep, and she had been bleeding dry since then. It was only now that she was letting anyone close enough to bandage her back up again.

"Clarke…" Lexa breathes out her name and reaches out a hand out to rest on Clarke's shoulder.

"He spoke the truth, Lexa," Clarke somehow chokes out and she hates the way her voice breaks but she hates more the way she lets it anyway. "People die when I'm the leader. I am a killer, even of my own people."

Lexa's head shakes swiftly in response. "You know that isn't true, Clarke. Victory stands on the back of sacrifice," she declares like she has so many times before. The difference now is the softness in her voice as she says it. "You did what must be done to save who you could."

With hands that shake despite her intentions to hide it, Lexa begins to wrap Clarke's wrist. "And the fact that he would insinuate otherwise…I'm sorry, Clarke."

Lexa was not one to refrain from apologies when she needed to give them. But this was not her mistake to correct. Thought it was not her misgiving to clean up, she tried anyway.

As Lexa finishes wrapping Clarke's first wrist Clarke flips her hand and pulls Lexa's into her own, squeezing it gently in appreciation. "Thank you."

"I'm not finished," she insists and Clarke realizes Lexa is referencing her wounds. So she offers her other wrist in response. "I know you care for him."

It's a loaded statement and Clarke isn't sure what to do with it. Because she did care for him, even if he did say those terrible words and drag her quite possibly to her execution, she would still hurt if something happened to him. He had been her ally for so long that she didn't know how to even begin viewing him as an enemy.

"I care for you too." The words slip out before Clarke has fully considered them and Lexa pauses as her fingers tuck the last piece of the bandage away. The admission finds its way into the room because Clarke was so tired of caring about the things Bellamy has said and the burden she was being forced to shoulder. She was yearning for that small smile that Lexa had to offer and the promise that this weight was not hers to carry alone.

Lexa peers up at Clarke, shy eyes and fixed lips as she says, "I won't take that lightly." It's an unspoken promise, not to break Clarke's heart any more than it already was. "I would hope you are aware that I care for you as well, Clarke."

It's easy to nod in response because if these last few weeks have taught her nothing else, Clarke has learned that Lexa does indeed care. It was proven with gentle hands and soft smiles and bandages carefully wrapped around wrists. It was demonstrated on bent knees and written in heavy stares. This fact was not one that was hidden away but worn freely for Clarke to see and to know without doubt.

"Yes," she answers simply. It might not be much, but for tonight it was just the bandage she needed. "I know."


End file.
